Modern Art with Kids- Lichtenstein Dot Art

Lately I've wanted to expose my preschooler to different types of art. But with a new baby at home, our creative and crafty times have been hard to come by. So I was really excited when my older son and I had the chance to make some art the other morning. We looked at Lichtenstein's Stepping Out, talked about what we saw in the artwork, and then made some of our own inspired modern pop art!

Modern Art With Kids- Lichtenstein Dot Art

Making Lichtenstein-inspired Modern Art with kiddos!

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First... a little background...

This activity was inspired by this new book: Modern Art Adventures. Have you heard of it? It's such a great book. The authors share 18 famous pieces of modern art and 36 projects inspired by those pieces of art. The activities are for kids 6 and up, so most of them are slightly too complicated for my son. But I still enjoy reading the book because it provides the background and meaning behind each piece of art. Plus I can easily adapt the ideas to suit him (which is what I did here!)

I chose to do a project inspired by this particular piece of art because he LOVES vibrant colors, comics, and superheroes. And Lichtenstein's artwork has all three!

Materials Needed:

Let's look at the artwork:

First my son and I talked about Lichtenstein's Stepping Out. We noticed the colors that he used, the subject of his art, and the lovely lines and dots that he added.

Let's try our hand at making some modern art!

Then, we both drew self-portraits inspired by the artwork. (We used Sharpie markes so the outlines wouldn't bleed when we painted them.) My son used the mirror to look at his face before he started drawing.

Once we finished drawing in our black outlines, we painted everything with Kwik Stix Solid Tempera Paint.

Full disclosure here: The Kwik Stix company sent me a box of their solid tempera paints to try out. We never used their products before, so I didn't know what to expect. Well, now we've done 3 art projects with them... and I gotta say that we LOVE them. They're...

Super easy to use: You simply uncap them and then twist. The paint rises and lowers like a glue stick. It was so easy my preschooler could do it.
Super vibrant- We totally dig the colors!
Quick dry: They dry in 90 seconds. So you don't need to worry about clean up or dry time.